Saving Seafood

News for the North Pacific Region

ALASKA: As local streams warm, cold water inputs could be crucial for salmon

August 26, 2021 — This particular pocket of Beaver Creek is not far from the road, just a short and muddy tromp away from a gravel parking lot between Kenai and Soldotna. But it’s home to several cold water inputs that could be crucially important for young salmon as they swim from the Kenai River to Cook Inlet.

Cook Inletkeeper Executive Director Sue Mauger said the inputs are like cold water faucets.

“They’re a little place where there’s a constant pump of colder water,” she said. “And that really can help buffer when we have those really warm, sunny days to actually have some cold water coming into the creek.”

Inletkeeper is working with the Kenai Watershed Forum and the Kachemak Heritage Land Trust to diagram those cold water spots in four peninsula creeks. The goal is to keep those creeks, and the salmon that use them, protected.

Here’s the catch — the inputs fall over a mosaic of private and city land. The nonprofits are reaching out to landowners to let them know they have something special in their backyards.

“Everyone who owns riverfront property knows they have really special habitat,” Mauger said. “Like, they know that that’s important; that’s why they bought the property, probably, is to be on the river. But to then be told, ‘You have extra special property. You have something really unique on your property’ is very exciting for someone.”

Read the full story at KDLL

How low chum runs changed the lives of these Western Alaska fisheries workers

August 25, 2021 — For decades, Kwik’Pak Fisheries in the Western Alaska village of Emmonak has provided reliable summer employment in one of the state’s most unemployed regions. The company is the only fish processor on the Yukon River.

But with salmon runs low and commercial fishing closed, it’s offering few jobs this summer. Commercial fishermen and women are feeling the economic stress, and those who are still working at the plant have had to transition to new roles.

Every day at half past noon, Paul Andrews walks to the river bank in Emmonak, stopping at a small metal marker nestled on a dune. He takes out a surveyor’s measuring tape, hooks it on to the marker and walks it to the water line. Then he phones the National Weather Service.

“Make that 79 feet at 12:30,” Andrews said.

Read the full story at KTOO

Alaska legislators scrutinize Dunleavy’s proposed $2,350 PFD

August 25, 2021 — State legislators are raising questions about whether the state can afford $2,350 permanent fund dividends this year, as pitched by Gov. Mike Dunleavy.

Dunleavy added proposed legislation on Thursday to the special session agenda that would pay for $2,350 PFDs, as well as other programs. If that hadn’t happened, there was a chance Alaskans wouldn’t receive a dividend at all for the first time in 40 years.

State budget director Neil Steininger said Dunleavy still wants the Legislature to pass the constitutional amendments he’s proposed that would enshrine the PFD in the state constitution and lower the state’s spending limit.

“This appropriation bill isn’t … the agenda in and of itself,” he said. “This appropriation bill is there to support the discussions and the decisions that need to be made on those bigger policy issues.”

Steininger testified on the measure, House Bill 3003, to the House Finance Committee on Friday.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

ALASKA: Sockeye run overescaped by 1 million fish

August 25, 2021 — Nearly 2.5 million late-run sockeye are projected to pass through the Kenai River by the end of the month, overescaping the river by over one million fish.

Those numbers concern fishermen like Joe Dragseth, a drift-netter in Kenai. He said he worries about the health of the river. And he said it’s unfair commercial fishermen have been restricted while so many fish have made it up the river.

“Basically, they’re taking the living away from us,” he said.

Alaska Department of Fish and Game sets both in-river and sustainable escapement goals for the run each season. The philosophy is returns will be best if the run falls between those goalposts.

Read the full story at KDLL

Weekend’s uptick in coronavirus cases linked to seafood plant

August 24, 2021 — Sitka’s recent uptick in COVID cases over the weekend can be attributed, in part, to an outbreak at a local seafood plant.

When the Sitka Unified Command met on Wednesday (8-18-21) Public Health Nurse Denise Ewing said the outbreak occurred at Sitka Sound Seafoods.

“It was several of their employees that became positive. They were very advantageous, and made sure that they quickly worked with me,” Ewing said. “[It] could have been much worse than what it was.”

Ewing said she’s been working with state epidemiologists and the seafood company to mitigate the spread, securing housing for all employees who were exposed to quarantine, and shut down some areas of the plant.

“And we enforced it, and I was able to activate that [mitigation plan] and to keep it from spreading. And that’s exactly what we’ve done. We’ve contained it, it is contained.” she said. Employees are testing every three days and will continue that process for at least two weeks.

Sitka Sound Seafoods is a subsidiary of Seattle-based North Pacific Seafoods. In a written statement, North Pacific Seafoods Vice President of Human Resources Leauri Moore said several employees tested positive in mid-July. The plant discovered a new group of cases over the weekend as a result of regular testing. She said the employees are receiving isolation and quarantine pay.

Read the full story at KCAW

NOAA Fisheries Cancels 2021 Belugas Count!

August 23, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

After careful consideration regarding the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, NOAA Fisheries and partners have decided to cancel the 2021 Belugas Count! event.

Belugas Count! is a citizen science opportunity and festival event usually held in September, when viewing of endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales near Anchorage and Kenai is optimal.

“Belugas Count! is a family-focused event that brings together people of all ages,” said Jon Kurland, director of NOAA Fisheries Alaska Region’s Protected Resources Division. “Regrettably, due to the status of the pandemic, NOAA Fisheries and our partners decided to cancel the 2021 Belugas Count! event, as we did in 2020, out of an abundance of caution.”

Read more.

ALASKA: Yukon subsistence users go to new lengths for food after chums don’t return

August 20, 2021 — This has been the worst salmon fishing season on record for the Yukon River.

King salmon, a regional favorite, have returned in low numbers for years. But now a typically stable species, chum salmon, has also collapsed this year. Subsistence fishing on the lower Yukon River for both species is now closed. Residents, like Jason Lamont, who usually depend heavily on the fish are pivoting toward other ways to get protein.

“I started fishing on the Yukon when I was 6 years old,” said Lamont. “There was one point, me and my grandpa were coming down here for supplies and we had a summer chum jump into the boat. But those days are gone.”

Lamont is from Emmonak and lives off of subsistence food, which in past summers has meant salmon. His family doesn’t buy meat from the store: Salmon caught during the summer will help carry his family through the winter.

Read the full story at Alaska Public Media

Body Condition of Endangered Killer Whales Reflects Salmon Numbers and Odds of Survival

August 19, 2021 — The following was released by NOAA Fisheries:

The body condition of endangered Southern Resident killer whales reflects changes in Chinook salmon numbers in the Fraser River and the Salish Sea. This is according to new research using aerial photogrammetry from drones to track changes in their body condition over time.

The study, titled “Survival of the Fattest: Linking body condition to prey availability and survivorship of killer whales,” also found that poor body condition makes the whales more likely to die.

The new findings published today in Ecosphere highlight the value of monitoring these endangered whales through aerial photogrammetry. This method can detect individual whales declining in condition, which can provide an early warning system that they may die.

The 74 Southern Resident orcas make up three pods known as J, K, and L. Each pod is made up of distinct social and family groups.

The research showed that the body condition of J pod whales improved when Chinook salmon abundance was higher in the Salish Sea and in Fraser River tributaries. L pod body condition improved when Chinook salmon abundance was higher in Puget Sound tributaries, although that relationship was weaker than J pod and Fraser River Chinook. K pod whales had no clear relationship to the salmon populations examined in the study. However,  whales in K pod also experienced little change in their body condition during the study period.

K and L pods spend more time foraging on the outer coast of Washington and Oregon than J pod. Their more varied diet is more challenging to relate to changes in their body condition. In contrast, J pod depends to a greater extent on Chinook salmon. Differences in body condition between the three pods reflects distinct foraging patterns, while the condition of individual whales provides insights into their health, researchers found.

Read the full release here

ALASKA: Last chance? Cook Inlet setnetters look to buyback as a way to save fishery

August 19, 2021 — In some ways, Cook Inlet’s East Side setnet fishery is the most desirable of commercial fisheries to get into: instead of having to fish remote sections of muddy beach, far from roads or towns, commercial fishermen can finish their sets for the day, jump up to the top of the bluff, and go to town for the night.

The ones who live on the Kenai Peninsula can even go home, if they want to.

In other ways, it’s one of the worst fisheries to be in. With unexpected closures and constant conflicts over salmon allocation, it’s not uncommon to find fishermen poring over the specific wording of management plans or frantically checking fish counts in the nearby Kenai River to see if they’ll be open. Many of them also listen in to the Board of Fisheries meetings, asking the members and department for changes or adjustments to management.

That’s where Ken Coleman has found himself every three years since the 1980s: in the chairs at the Board of Fisheries meetings. A north Kalifornsky Beach, known as K-Beach, setnetter, Coleman said he’s watched the fishery ratchet back, with setnetters losing first the early season, then the late season, then gear, then time.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

The Americas’ First Ecosystem Managers

August 19, 2021 — The maritime fur trade, beginning in the 1700s and centered on the North Pacific Ocean, killed around one million sea otters and left the species fluttering on the verge of extinction with a global population as low as 1,000. On the west coast of Canada, the animal didn’t make it. The last sea otter was seen in the region in 1929, off Vancouver Island, British Columbia. But beginning in the 1960s, restoration efforts have turned back the clock on British Columbia’s sea otters. From an initial 89 sea otters relocated from Alaska, a population of 8,000 is now expanding in the province. Yet after generations of their absence, the surge in sea otters is stoking the resentment of some residents.

The trouble is, a sea otter consumes 25 to 30 percent of its own body weight every day. The otters’ voracious appetite can have dramatic ecological effects. It doesn’t help, either, that sea otters eat many of the same seafoods that humans in the area have long favored, such as crabs and clams, sparking conflict with shellfish fisheries and leading some to argue that the reintroduction effort has worked too well.

Now, a new study suggests that conservation efforts may have indeed overshot the mark—and the reason why is particularly interesting.

When thinking about restoring natural ecosystems, the goal for many would likely be to see a species rebound to its carrying capacity—that is, the maximum population a given habitat can support, free from human impact. So, for the sea otter, that would be to roll back the effects of colonization, the commercial fur trade, hunting, land development, and other pressures to a time when abundant sea otters may have dwelled on the coast, gorging on abalone and other shellfish. But taking that as your goal is to overlook the way Indigenous peoples extensively managed the sea otter population for thousands of years.

Led by Erin Slade, a graduate student at British Columbia’s Simon Fraser University, new research examining the sizes of mussels found along the coast challenges the assumption that late-Holocene sea otter populations would have ever been at, or even near, their carrying capacity.

Read the full story at Hakai Magazine